


An Overdue Conversation

by Patrick_Diomedes



Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 10:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4218435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patrick_Diomedes/pseuds/Patrick_Diomedes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Becoming a parent made Harry realize that he's done someone a disservice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Overdue Conversation

It had taken me a month and a half of work to set up this meeting. Most of it had been spent making sure that Marcone wouldn’t find out. Eventually, I’d gotten in contact with the person I wanted to talk to, and set up a meeting at a random restaurant outside of Chicago.

I wasn’t so naive as to think that Marcone wouldn’t be able to watch either of us outside of the city, but most of his power was concentrated there. Anything to make his life a little more difficult.

“What’s this about, Mr. Dresden?” Helen Beckitt/Demeter asked, sitting down across from me. She was wearing casual clothes rather than the business suit I’d usually seen her in, and the difference was a bit disconcerting.

I held up a finger in a ‘wait a sec’ gesture, and took a small piece of wood out of my pocket. I’d carved it into a rough disc, and then etched the sigils and formulae for the spell into it. I wasn’t sure if I was doing this the same way that Rashid had done that one time, but it was pretty damn close.

I directed my will down into the disk, whispered  _“sub rosa,”_  and set it in the center of the table. 

Beckitt blinked, staring at the ward.

“To make sure no one overhears us,” I said, taking a sip from my coke.

“Then this is something that we shouldn’t be discussing?” she replied, an eyebrow raised.

“Your boss would certainly see it that way, but fuck him. This is something you deserve to know.” I said. I took a deep breath, chugged the last of my drink, and met Helen Beckitt’s eyes.

“Your daughter is alive.”

She blinked, and then a short, sharp laugh escaped her lips. It wasn’t a laugh of amusement, just derision.

“You know, that’s the first time someone’s tried to use her memory against me like that,” she said, voice as cold and hard as an iceberg. “I thought you had more sense than that.”

“She’s in a coma. The Vargassis had her declared dead, and moved her to a different hospital. That way, if things ever went to a trial, they could play their trump card and say that she wasn’t dead, so Marco couldn’t be tried for murder,” I said.

Helen’s face had gone ashen. “How do you know this? What proof do you have?”

“I found out about ten years ago. Marcone had hired some thieves to steal the Shroud of Turin. He wanted to use it to cure her. I followed him to the hospital where she’s being kept, when he made off with the Shroud after a battle. Didn’t realize who she was at first. Just that Marcone threatened to kill me if I said anything. I only figured it out after the whole thing with you and the Ordo.”

Color was returning to her cheeks now, a flush of anger spreading across them. “And you didn’t tell me?” she hissed, leaning across the table towards me. I nodded.

“I didn’t know what to do at first. And then…honestly, with all the other insanity in my life…”

“You forgot,” she said, voice flat.

“And I’m sorry. I…only remembered it recently. And my priorities have changed, lately.”

Her eyes widened in sudden realization. “The child. The one at the Carpenters’,” she breathed. I swore under my breath. I was getting really bad at keeping Maggie a secret. Not that I wanted to, exactly. But it was safer for her.

“You can’t–” I began, but Beckitt nodded sharply.

“I would never endanger a child. You have my word on that.” She took a shaky breath, and stood up from the table. “Thank you, Mr. Dresden. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I can’t be away from the office for too long,” she said, and strode out of the restaurant. I watched her leave.

Helen Beckitt had nearly gotten Marcone killed once before, passing information to the Denarians that let them capture him, because she believed him responsible for her daughter’s death. The fact that he’d kept her survival from her…that might be enough to put her on the warpath again.


End file.
